Wooing the W.H.: Don't say 'lobbying'

Want to get a meeting with the White House? Just don’t call it lobbying.

President Barack Obama promised early in 2009 that he would usher in new limits on special-interest influence peddling on his watch, enacting tough disclosure rules that created an anti-lobbyist climate in town.

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But some Washington insiders have figured out how to work the new system. Case in point: A nonprofit called Business Forward can boast of setting up an average of three meetings a week between top White House officials and business leaders, and member companies like Microsoft, Visa and Hilton.

The strategy: The meetings, with top officials like Cass Sunstein and Jack Lew, are billed as “dialogues.” It’s an approach that plays well with former academics in the administration who prefer a discussion with a special interest groups to a meeting with a hired gun.

Business Forward and a similar group, the Common Purpose Project, say the meetings don’t violate any rules and aren’t even lobbying in the traditional sense. But the companies funding Business Forward and the wealthy donors that subsidize CPP ’s operation are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in large part because of what they offer: special access.

Business Forward organizes one briefing a week for D.C. member companies. It also coordinates two to three meetings for business leaders to come into Washington for White House meetings and another two events where administration officials meet with business leaders outside Washington. While member companies may participate in all meetings, the fly-ins and outbound meetings are attended largely by non-dues-paying people Business Forward has cultivated.

“The bulk of our work is organizing briefings,” said Jim Doyle, a veteran Democratic operative and the founder of Business Forward. “Our goal is to focus on all of those people outside Washington who have something to say, just don’t have a means of getting involved.”

A spokesman for the White House declined to comment.

Business Forward, which doesn’t take positions or advocate for specific policies, has a funding scheme that is similar to a traditional trade association. It charges founding member companies like AT&T, Hilton Worldwide, Microsoft, Visa and Walmart, among others, an annual membership fee of $50,000. Those dues — and the $25,000 dues that national members pony up — goes toward funding weekly small-group meetings for member companies with senior administration officials. The money also pays for nontraditional association activities, including a massive grass-roots push with Business Forward organizing meetings with administration officials around the country with nonpaying members such as local business owners, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.